Suchergebnisse

The article presents, in a synthetic manner, the mechanism of introducing the Stalinist system in Poland and describes its essence. It points to the importance of – until now given less value in the relevant literature – the mechanism of elimination of institutions and persons representing the constitutional order and state-creating social fabric, as well as introducing in their place representatives of the lowest social classes and institutions impersonating Polish centres of power, but in fact fully dependent on the USSR. The text focuses on political and social issues, as well as on the extensive ­repression apparatus. ; The article presents, in a synthetic manner, the mechanism of introducing the Stalinist system in Poland and describes its essence. It points to the importance of – until now given less value in the relevant literature – the mechanism of elimination of institutions and persons representing the constitutional order and state-creating social fabric, as well as introducing in their place representatives of the lowest social classes and institutions impersonating Polish centres of power, but in fact fully dependent on the USSR. The text focuses on political and social issues, as well as on the extensive ­repression apparatus.

In this essay I will investigate how the legacy of Stalinism still affects Angola today, arguing that it negative- ly impacts the current possibility of an actual national Marxist-Leninist movement taking root in Angola. I furthermore argue that the four main institutions through which the party in control of the Angolan gov- ernment holds power—that is, the institutions of presidential patronage, the elite government bureaucracy, denial of the legitimate rights of ethnicities, and severe restrictions on the press and political freedoms— were inherited from Stalinism, and it is these four institutions that also serve to demobilize and demoralize workers. Stalinism has not only led to the collapse of the national workers' movement there, however; it has also paved the way for an incredibly corrupt, bureaucratic, and authoritarian form of crony capitalism that deprives the great majority of Angolan people their most basic social and economic rights. This in and of itself makes it even more difficult for the workers' movement to be revived and for a truly Marxist-Le- ninist revolution to take place. It can be said, then, that overall the legacy of Stalinism has deprived Angola the opportunity to become actually independent and free.

This article argues that 'intersectionality' is at the end of the day derived from the People's Front policy of the 1930s Comintern, as modified by late 1960s–1970s 'soft Maoism', and then adopted in the late 1970s–1980s by the political representatives of US capital as an ideological colouration for the growth of economic inequality under financialisation. In the result, the project is self-defeating, giving way to 'white identity politics' and similar formations.

Western theories of biopolitics focus on its liberal and fascist rationalities. In opposition to this, Stalinism was oriented more towards transforming life in accordance with the communist ideal, and less towards protecting it. Sergei Prozorov reconstructs this rationality in the early Stalinist project of the Great Break (1928–32) and its subsequent modifications during High Stalinism. He then relocates the question of biopolitics down to the level of the subject, tracing the way the 'new Soviet person' was to be produced in governmental practices and the role that violence and terror would play in this construction. ; Peer reviewed

Aside from casual references to Soviet biopolitics in the work of Foucault, Agamben, and Esposito, the theoretical literature on biopolitics has largely ignored the Soviet experience, while empirical research in Russian studies has rarely addressed biopolitics. The article examines the experience of Stalinism as an important case for the study of biopolitics that helps resolve a problem preoccupying scholars from Foucault onward: the proximity of biopolitics to its opposite, the thanatopolitics of the mass production of death. How is it that a mode of power presenting itself in terms of care, augmentation, and intensification of life so frequently end up negating life itself? The article addresses this question in the context of the confluence of two political rationalities in the project of Soviet socialism, the revolutionary transcendence of the old order and the biopolitical immanentism of the construction of new forms of life. Focusing on the catastrophic policies of the Great Break (1928–1932), it argues that this combination is ultimately aporetic, leading to the violent destruction of the very lives that were to be transformed. The conclusion considers the contemporary relevance of the lessons to be learnt from Stalinist biopolitics. ; Peer reviewed

Book review. Reviewed work: Biopolitics of Stalinism: Ideology and Life in Soviet Socialism / by Sergei Prozorov. - Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2016. ; Non peer reviewed

This book is a comparative framework for interpreting the relationship between late Stalinism and the communist takeovers in former Eastern Europe. A bonus for the volume is that it also provides detailed, sectorial analyses for the Romanian case, something that the field particularly lacks. The structure of the volume provides grounds for both reinterpretation and an input of fresh insights and research on the nature, dynamics, and consequences of Stalinism in Eastern and Central Europe. It contains three types of contributions: (a) general analyses of phenomena associated with the category of Stalinism; (b) case studies focusing upon aspects of establishment of communist regimes in each of the Eastern European countries; (c) historiographical evaluations of the literature dealing with the targeted period of time.

Thirty-one years ago, in 1985, Manuel Sacristán died in Barcelona at the age of 59. After the publication in 2014 of a volume with some of his writings translated into English (Llorente 2014), it is time to help non-Spanish-speaking readers to know more about him. Yet it is not easy to explain to generations born after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Manuel Sacristán was a most important Marxist philosopher and at the same time one of the few pioneers introducing political ecology and antinuclear peace movement during the last quarter of the 20th century in Spain. Many people believe that Marxism, environmentalism and pacifism are views that exclude each other. Most of what has been said and done on behalf of Marxism since Stalin took over the leadership of the Communist Party of the USSR in the 1930s, up to its dissolution in 1991, contributes to sustaining this belief. The fast industrialization of the Old Russian Empire undertaken by the Soviet State was nowhere near taking into account ecological sustainability. Its socio-environmental impact turned out to be comparable or even worse than the ones caused by capitalist industrialization.

Abstract. The problem under discussion is sure to be relevant due to the fact that the Stalinism as a historical phenomenon represents a significant element of the Soviet and Russian reality without understanding of which the comprehensive research of problems of the present seems to be impossible. "The Stalinism era" is a definition that covers a phenomenon that attracts the unflagging attention of modern Russian society, as well as the wide thematic range of researches of modern Russian historians united by this term that has developed in historical science. This determines the problematic nature of the proposed review, in which historiography is viewed not as a closed system, but as a mobile research field that is subject to both external (social, political) and internal (scientific, historical,methodological) influence. The purpose of the article is to characterize modern national historical literature, which examines the history of Stalin's influence and Stalinism as a system for historical science in general and for certain aspects of it in particular. The authors came to the conclusion that modern Russian historians characterize this influence as a whole as negative (narrowing of pluralism, appearance of "forbidden" topics, repressions against historians), but some researchers also highlight positive aspects (restoration of the system of historical education). Equally contradictory assessment historians give to the position of historical science in the 1930s-50s: starting with the loss ofhistory its status of science to an important element in the system of government and society. The materials of the article can be useful for historians, university professors, teachers who deal with the history of Soviet (Russian) historical science and the history of Russia during the era of Stalin.Key words: Stalinism, history, historians, historiography, the cult of personality, totalitarianism.

Taking the Vereinigung der Opfer des Stalinismus (Association of the Victims of Stalinism, or VOS) as a case study, this article argues that civil society organisations which claim to represent the interests of victims of historical injustice must seek to construct and propagate notions of the political and social relevance of victimhood, in such a way that it both offers a coherent point of identification for individual victims and speaks to the concerns of the political system on which victims they for compensation and recognition. By examining the discourse of officials of this organisation over time, it is possible to demonstrate the extent to which victims' representatives must adapt their conception of victimhood in order to respond to changing circumstances. The article also points to the challenges these organisations face in remaining relevant in new political contexts.

Knowledge of communism, so carefully presented in the best and the most famous work of Milovan Ðilas entitled The New Class. An Analysis of the Communist System, New York, 1957, undoubtedly resulted from his previous political practice and theoretical reflections. In the years 1941-1949, Ðilas was both a politician and one of the main ideologists and propagandists of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. In his later writings, books and speeches, he pointed out that even in time of the war he began to express doubts whether the communistic idea, as he understood at that time, indeed could be fully realized. The above mentioned doubts should be treated hypothetically, we should approach to them with caution. Mostly because they are expressed later after World War II. We do not have a possibility to confirm its veracity on the basis of other sources, documents and messages than those presented in the article. However, the analysis of Ðilas intellectual attitude after the outbreak of the conflict between the Soviet and Yugoslav Communists in 1948, leaves no doubts that slowly and gradually, but irreversibly, Ðilas began to undermine the meaning and the possibility of building "socialism" in line with Stalinist principles. Ðilas propaganda initial admiration of Soviet reality gave way to criticism. Of course, in 1949, so at the end of the period, Ðilas was still a communist. Nevertheless, he inclined to the conviction that Stalinist model becomes a clear deviation from the "true" Marxism. It would be difficult to determine to which extent the conviction was authentic and to which extent - primarily the political consequence, arising from the fact that after the Cominform resolution of June 1948, the Yugoslav Communists, if they did not want to give up the dictatorship of Stalin, had to develop their own ideology and a line of conduct. Anyway, like other leaders of the CPY, Ðilas became a "heretic" rejecting Stalinist orthodoxy. Such "heresy" was the beginning of an attempt to build Yugoslav ideology, orthodoxy. Until the turn of the years 1953/1954 Ðilas would be one of its creators.

Knowledge of communism, so carefully presented in the best and the most famous work of Milovan Ðilas entitled The New Class. An Analysis of the Communist System, New York, 1957, undoubtedly resulted from his previous political practice and theoretical reflections. In the years 1941-1949, Ðilas was both a politician and one of the main ideologists and propagandists of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. In his later writings, books and speeches, he pointed out that even in time of the war he began to express doubts whether the communistic idea, as he understood at that time, indeed could be fully realized. The above mentioned doubts should be treated hypothetically, we should approach to them with caution. Mostly because they are expressed later after World War II. We do not have a possibility to confirm its veracity on the basis of other sources, documents and messages than those presented in the article. However, the analysis of Ðilas intellectual attitude after the outbreak of the conflict between the Soviet and Yugoslav Communists in 1948, leaves no doubts that slowly and gradually, but irreversibly, Ðilas began to undermine the meaning and the possibility of building "socialism" in line with Stalinist principles. Ðilas propaganda initial admiration of Soviet reality gave way to criticism. Of course, in 1949, so at the end of the period, Ðilas was still a communist. Nevertheless, he inclined to the conviction that Stalinist model becomes a clear deviation from the "true" Marxism. It would be difficult to determine to which extent the conviction was authentic and to which extent - primarily the political consequence, arising from the fact that after the Cominform resolution of June 1948, the Yugoslav Communists, if they did not want to give up the dictatorship of Stalin, had to develop their own ideology and a line of conduct. Anyway, like other leaders of the CPY, Ðilas became a "heretic" rejecting Stalinist orthodoxy. Such "heresy" was the beginning of an attempt to build Yugoslav ideology, orthodoxy. Until the turn of the years 1953/1954 Ðilas would be one of its creators.

Red Nationalism? A Brief Overview of the Origins of Polish StalinismThis article argues against the still-dominant idea that Polish Stalinism must be interpreted in "exteriority" and "rupture" due to the Soviet Union's political grip over the country. The period of Stalinist rule constitutes a particularly dense and fecund time in Polish history, one that can only be understood within the framework of Poland's past and present: the period's origins and metahistory. The discursive gesture of depriving certain historical actors of their legitimate agency echoes the struggles over ethnicity and politics within Polish socialist circles at the turn of the twentieth century. There is, however, a disturbing paradox in the historical outcome of this distant debate: The ones who carried out the project of a Polish mono-ethnic state were the disciples of Polish revolutionary internationalists. Czerwony nacjonalizm? Przyczynek do genealogii polskiego stalinizmuArtykuł stanowi polemikę z wciąż jeszcze dominującym poglądem, jakoby ze względu na polityczną dominację Związku Radzieckiego nad ówczesną Polską polski stalinizm należało rozpatrywać w kategoriach "zewnętrzności" i "zerwania". Stalinizm był szczególnie doniosłym i intensywnym okresem polskiej historii, okresem, który można zrozumieć jedynie w odniesieniu do przeszłości i teraźniejszości Polski, w kontekście jego początków i metahistorii. Dyskursywny gest przemilczenia rzeczywistego wpływu pewnych aktorów na historię przywodzi na myśl konflikt, jaki na przełomie XIX i XX wieku toczył się w obrębie ruchu socjalistycznego wokół roli etniczności w polityce. Te dawne spory miały jednak paradoksalny rezultat: realizacja projektu monoetnicznego polskiego państwa narodowego przypadła w udziale epigonom polskich rewolucjonistów-internacjonalistów.

This article analyses the political, scientific, and social circumstances of the beginning of infrastructural globalism in Eastern Europe, using the example of the International Geophysical Year (1957–8). This research programme led to the establishment of the first large global infrastructures operating in Eastern Europe, i.e. behind the Iron Curtain, under the auspices of international organizations (UNESCO, ICSU). Following the Geneva conference in 1955, large infrastructures and 'big data' science were supposed to become part of Soviet science diplomacy. The paper shows that while the Soviet Union and East-European countries accepted the challenge and became part of the global scientific community, nevertheless specific features of data and information control remained under the strict surveillance of the USSR.

This article analyses the political, scientific, and social circumstances of the beginning of infrastructural globalism in Eastern Europe, using the example of the International Geophysical Year (1957–8). This research programme led to the establishment of the first large global infrastructures operating in Eastern Europe, i.e. behind the Iron Curtain, under the auspices of international organizations (UNESCO, ICSU). Following the Geneva conference in 1955, large infrastructures and 'big data' science were supposed to become part of Soviet science diplomacy. The paper shows that while the Soviet Union and East-European countries accepted the challenge and became part of the global scientific community, nevertheless specific features of data and information control remained under the strict surveillance of the USSR.